Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Wed Dec 3rd Todays News

Enemy of the ADF

ALP is the enemy of the ADF. Badged as a friend of the ADF, Kim Beazley, former ALP leader foisted the Collins Class submarines which were so bad that no other nation wanted to buy from the class. The loss of funds from the blowout cost Australia defence capability. After the Howard administration raised funds available to the ADF, the following Rudd/Gillard administrations cut the ADF's funds to beneath pre WW2 levels. But also, the ALP set up a special unit designed to weaken and discredit the ADF. ADF special forces were subject to scrutiny inappropriate to their function. Lots of soldiers died from mismanagement. Issues of a sexual nature were placed in the public arena in an attack on defence culture so as to save bad ALP ministers from criticism. Jason Clare placed weakened body armour on active forces and soldiers died. Naval forces who wanted to go to the aid of sinking vessels in international waters were warned off by the ALP so that asylum seekers drowned. Now, the ALP want the government to waste money on substandard ship building so as to protect union labour. The Collins Class submarines had an edge from expertise that Australia had gained from former South Vietnamese forces who were left without a government in '75, but those good people have retired now. Meaning production talent has gone while the price remains high. Jacquie Lambie interrupted Phil Hughes' funeral to be herself. She has shrilly demanded the government pay ADF forces above inflation when all government services will be subject to the same cost. The previous ALP administration have damaged the economy with substantial debt that must be repaid now, or it will be a stone weighing down the prospects of our children. Lambie could pass cuts which would make her demand possible, but she refuses to do that. Her voting pattern in the senate closely matches the ALP, and that is a betrayal to every one of her constituents who did not vote for the ALP, and voted for her. She also betrayed those mourning for Hughes. The nation will need to move on from the death of Hughes, and celebrate his life. The funeral was not the right time to grandstand. Unreported issue discovered of death of migrants from ALP government. The ABC and SMH/Age have only just become aware that navy were 'suggested' not to save migrants on the high seas. Meanwhile ALP and Greens vote to keep some thirty thousand locked up by denying the legislation of temporary protection visas for those who survived the ALP's compassion. The ABC, in reporting the issue, substitute the policy which resulted in death from the ALP's to the current LNP's policy which is preventing it. Such a 'mistake' is a very nasty shot in the culture wars the ABC are engaged in.

Culture wars

A ridiculous senate is being lauded for preventing good legislation. Mr Abbott is being blamed for the blockage. But the blockers are feeling pain too. The ALP has decided that it can behave badly in the lower house and get themselves booted temporarily, but they don't do that in the upper house where they maintain numbers to block legislation. The ALP are also blocking all legislation without having an alternative policy. They refer to money trees, as if it is ok that every man woman and child is happy to pay interest of over $6k a year just to stand still. And not every man, woman or child works .. so the burden of paying ALP debt falls on fewer people. Meanwhile PUP, which began as a block of four, are a block of two, voting the same as the ALP. Lambie has become a true independent, and is voting as the ALP all on her own. Climate alarmists sidestep the truth. They claim that plant food is bad. They claim that it is important to reduce national reliance on carbon dioxide production. But they refuse to accept in Australia that which works over seas, like nuclear power or coal seam gas. Instead, climate alarmists are demanding bird killing windmills and solar power stations that don't reduce base load. Jihadists report they are suffering in ISIL and want to go home. Their iPod is broken, or they are tired of toilet duty, or they don't like carrying dead mates out of the fighting. The left has made up numerous reasons for why jihadists do what they do. but apparently those excuses simply aren't motivating. And maybe they never were. Maybe Islamic peoples are not oppressed in the West. Pyne pronounced it right, but ABC's Sales horselaughs and gets it wrong on Wang. But, even when corrected, there is no apology. Palmer conspiracies continue, listed by Bolt. Attempt to sue Bolt over nothing fails, and abuser is fined half a million dollars. Sometimes the law works.

Getting angry and pressing for a favoured agenda isn't effective. It is the curse of populist government. It boils down to a number game, where people spoil a situation until what they want happens, and they hope no one else spoils that. So that the ALP remove the Pacific Solution in order to put forward there own. It was an attempt at rebranding. Only the ALP failed, because the Pacific Solution was the best policy. It wasn't put in place to break the ALP, but to be effective in stopping the people trade where poor desperate people were exploited by pirates and often drowned. ALP opposition to effective policy means that the ALP does not stand for effective policy on illegal immigrants. Such branding policy has failed in many places, like education, fair work, health care, unions and marriage, to name a few. Thing is, effective policy is not always obvious. The Pacific Solution came about only after much tragedy. Education and health policy are hundreds of years old, fine tuned through ages of debate and compromise. Allowing an angry person to thoughtlessly pursue their own agenda without regard to history or effective need is dangerous. But the ALP have made Education their play thing and pursued a highly ineffective agenda. Modern education around the world began almost simultaneously in two separate places. The Madras System started in Madras circa 1792 when a headmaster (Dr Andrew Bell) of a school for orphans of British soldiers got a 12 year old boy, John Frisken, to teach the alphabet to much younger boys. Meanwhile Joseph Lancaster in England, began using older children to teach younger children. Both systems were adopted as models. One founded the British Foreign Service the other was adopted by the Catholic Church. In the 1870's, Britain began teacher training at university and dropped the Monitorial system. Teachers were supposed to model moral behaviour, as well as teach the basics. By early nineteenth century, kids were educated in Britain to year 8. After WW1, education in NSW was expected to be year 9, with university students being at school to year 11. Now there is discussion about a year 13. Now, teachers are highly specialised. Science teachers don't even understand Global Warming theory. English teachers don't know how to teach reading. History teachers don't know when the White Australia Policy ended, and have fantasy stories about a stolen generation. But they need more money to teach less. So as to raise the standard. When did the ALP begin bending education away from the core purpose of teaching? Whitlam did a lot of damage, but a lot of bad things pre existed him. But if a good idea is put forward, so many people will denounce it so as to roll the dice of change. ===This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.===For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - edLorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.

I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
===

Happy birthday and many happy returns Sandra Flowers. Born on the same day, across the years

1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.

1997 – In Ottawa, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign the Ottawa Treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however.

Tim Blair – Wednesday,December 03,2014 (1:13pm)

In a series of letters seen by Le Figaro newspaper, some of the 376 French currently fighting in Syria have begged for advice on how to return. Others have complained that, rather than participating in a noble battle, they have been acting as jihadi dogsbodies.

“I’ve basically done nothing except hand out clothes and food,” wrote one, who wants to return from Aleppo. “I also help clean weapons and transport dead bodies from the front. Winter’s arrived here. It’s begun to get really hard.”

Another writes: “I’m fed up. They make me do the washing up.”

One Frenchman whinged that he wanted to come home because he was missing the comforts of life in France.

“I’m fed up. My iPod doesn’t work any more here. I have to come back.”

A third wrote fearfully: “They want to send me to the front, but I don’t know how to fight.”

Tim Blair – Wednesday,December 03,2014 (3:18am)

More than a year after the last federal election, and long after the Abbott government ended the deadly people-smuggling trade into Australia, the ABC discovers one or two problems with the previous government’s asylum seeker policies:

‘Fiona’ is a serving Navy officer, so the ABC must obscure her identity. She worked at the Northern Command in Darwin, which directed the Navy ships intercepting asylum seeker boats …

Fiona said she was also aware of the level of indirect political pressure applied to border protection operations.

She said the captains of naval ships were told not to board asylum seeker vessels until they were in Australian waters, and the crews and passengers were then subject to Australian migration law.

She claims that on at least one occasion, an asylum seeker vessel sank as a result.

“In the incident that I’ve described where the boat overturned and people died, that pressure came from Canberra,” she said.

Interesting. The ABC also found Navy officer “Michael”:

Another serving Navy officer, ‘Michael’, also said he witnessed occasions in which unseaworthy asylum seeker vessels were not boarded because of decisions made in Canberra.

He said this pressure took the form of “suggestions” relayed to the captains of boats, rather than direct orders.

“Our vessel was delayed 15 hours for a boarding on one occasion and we got reports in from surveillance aircraft that that vessel had sunk 13 hours ago,” he said.

“All we found was probably a line about 70 miles long of bodies. We fished them out for as long as we could, ‘til we were full. And that wasn’t uncommon.”

Mentioned only once in this piece:

All of the personnel the ABC spoke to served on Operation Resolute during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments.

Men and women who served on Operation Resolute – the Navy’s contribution to Operation Sovereign Borders – have spoken publicly for the first time about what they have witnessed while boarding and intercepting asylum seeker vessels off Australia’s northern coast.

Operation Sovereign Borders was introduced by the Abbott government in 2013. It stopped the deaths and trauma referred to in this report. The ABC is more than a year late and a fact short.

STEPHEN PARKER, UNI. OF CANBERRA VICE-CHANCELLOR: Definitely, there are
things that need to be looked at. But what we had was a surprise
announcement on Budget night which contradicts assurances from what is
now the Government two days before the election with the threat of a
loss of research funding if we don’t agree. That is not the way for an
honourable government or for a statesman with the best interests of
higher education at heart to effect reforms. So if the gun is removed
and we can have a proper conversation, then I’d be very happy to join
them at the table…
SABRA LANE: Stephen Parker’s the Vice-Chancellor of Canberra
University. He’s critical of the universities’ peak lobby group,
Universities Australia, for supporting the Government’s changes, saying
it’s tantamount to a suicide pact.
STEPHEN PARKER: I think they’ve sold their soul, they’ve sold out
students and someone needs to say so clearly… I think [the Government
needs] to withdraw their proposals and stop trying last-minute
compromises, tacky things like $400 million for Tasmania, and then do
what the Commission of Audit actually recommended, which was a 12-month
debate about fee deregulation. We could possibly have pilot schemes, we
could look at certain kinds of courses having fees deregulated first, we
can model the impact on different kinds of students. This has been done
far too fast and in a rushed way, which has just sapped confidence that
the Government knows what it’s going with these reforms.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne is then interviewed by 7.30’s Leigh Sales and calls her out:

Well, surprisingly, Leigh, you’ve found
the one vice chancellor who is publically opposed to these reforms out
of 41. But the other 40 are in favour.

If Parker was the one warming sceptic among 41 climate scientists the
ABC would spurn him. But the one Abbott Government critic among 41 vice
chancellors?
If Labor votes down a reform backed by 40 out of 41 university vice
chancellors, isn’t the real story the bloody-mindedness of Labor, not
the unfairness of the Coalition?

The government faces another possible Senate defeat with Labor, the
Greens, the Palmer United party and other crossbench senators insisting
that 30,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in Australia receive the
possibility of a permanent visa.
The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, sought to sway senators as
debate on the new bill began, announcing he had agreed to increase the
humanitarian intake from 13,750 to 18,750 in two years’ time, and to
20,000 in the following year. He also said he would allow people on
temporary protection visas to leave the country for compassionate
reasons, for example to visit a dying relative, if they did not travel
to the country where they claimed they had been persecuted.

Note, too, how Jacqui Lambie will vote against good policy again and again, regardless of the facts of the matter.

The newly independent Jacqui Lambie
continued to say she would vote against all government legislation until
it agreed to improve its offer for defence force pay.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne tried to give ABC 7.30 host Leigh
Sales a lesson in Mandarin last night during an interview about the
defeat of his education reform bill in the Senate.
In an interview during which Pyne defended himself and his relationships
with crossbench senators the minister pronounced Palmer United Senator
Dio Wang’s name as “Dio Wong”.
“I have a great relationship with Glenn Lazarus and Clive Palmer and Dio
Wong,” Mr Pyne said before being corrected by the host.
“I think it’s Dio Wang, actually,” Sales said.
“Well, some people pronounce it ‘Wang’, some people pronounce it ‘Wong’.
“It depends on where you are in the spectrum,” Mr Pyne contended before
suggesting it was a “very small thing” for the host to pick him up on.

My surname is spelled “Wang,” but
it is pronounced \wong\. When I was little, some people would get mad
and scold that I was the one who was spelling or pronouncing my own name
wrong. (Or “Wong.” Ha ha. Not funny.) The “a” in Wang is pronounced
like “wander” or “want” or “wand.”

Will Sales apologise to Pyne? (UPDATE - SEE END OF POST)
By the way, Wang’s maiden speech was very good - wonderfully humble and
moving in the dedication to Wang’s daughter, whose reaction is a
delight. Wang’s family story is so very telling, and his anger at Tony
Abbott’s unfortunate description of the “honourable” conduct of Japanese
troops entirely understandable when he tells the history of the city of
his birth. I rate Wang highly, despite the political company he
unfortunately keeps:

UPDATE
Reader PeterB corrects me:

Andrew, I just want to pull you up on your last
paragraph - Abbott’s remarks were about the Japanese submariners that
attacked Sydney Harbour in 1942, not about Japanese troops in general.
It was the leftists and their media that blew up Abbott’s comments in to
something that they were not. You are perpetuating the myth by saying
the same.

Three errors in those headlines. Will the Daily Mail retract and apologise?
UPDATE
Credit to Leigh Sales for posting this admission after asking Dio Wang himself how to pronounce his name:
I suspect Sales will acknowledge this on tonight’s show.
But the whole episode - with Twitter savaging Pyne and journalists on ninesm and Daily Mail horselaughing - shows the power of confirmation bias.
And fours hours on, the Daily Mail still hasn’t corrected its false headlines.
(Thanks to reader Jason Fong.)

In an attempt to hijack the government’s agenda in the final days of the
parliamentary year, Senator Lambie cut short a move to honour the young
cricketer who died last week.
Her move also coincided with preparations for a funeral in his hometown of Macksville.
After a few moments of confusion, the Senate agreed to finalise its tributes to Hughes with a minute’s silence.
Senator Lambie then moved to suspend all other business so that senators could debate her bill.
The move was supported by Labor but was defeated 34-33.

Look at Labor’s response… How dare it reward this vile behaviour?
UPDATE
Lambie makes political capital from crashing the Hughes’ tributes:

The CIA funds the Greens.
Rupert Murdoch’s then wife Wendy Deng “is a Chinese spy”.
Rupert Murdoch gives orders to journalist Hedley Thomas via Skype to get Palmer.
Murdoch’s papers are in a conspiracy to bring down Palmer.
Palmer’s Chinese partners are part of a conspiracy by Chinese “mongrels” to take over our ports and steal our natural resources.
Palmer is being bugged by ASIO.
A network of former soldiers is working for the Australian Electoral Commission, fiddling results.
Some major political party planted Jacqui Lambie in his own party and got her to act irrationally

Bad polling in the early stages of a
government is an antidote to hubris. It toughens up the government for
the long haul and the eventual recovery earns the respect of the nation.
The key is to hold the line. As Margaret Thatcher said in the depths of
her polling woes just over a year into her first term, “we shall not be
diverted from our course. To those waiting with bated breath for that
favourite media catchphrase, the ‘U-turn’, I have only one thing to say:
‘You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.’?”
Today’s pundits look back on the Howard era as one long success story,
but John Howard had acute political headaches in his first and second
terms. Polling in year one was solid, but collapsed so badly in years
two and three there were fears the government would be a one-term
wonder. One Nation attracted many voters and gun ownership restrictions
drove away others. Spending cuts, the waterfront dispute and changes to
industrial relations and the GST were all unpopular. Seven ministers and
Howard’s chief of staff resigned because of the code of ministerial
conduct.
Labor hit the lead in year two of Howard’s first term with polls blowing
out to 57-43 two-party preferred. Labor remained in front until
election day. The second term was worse. A few months out from the 2001
election bookmakers offered $4 on Howard v $1.20 for Kim Beazley. From
there polling firmed up until Howard could lose only to a Labor leader
promising to be like him.
Pundits remember the Thatcher government and Reagan administration as a
golden age of widespread support but, although those governments were
popular for most of their time in office, initially their polling was
dire. Eighteen months into Thatcher’s first term three cabinet ministers
knocked on her door and suggested she resign. The Conservatives went on
to win three more elections and convince British Labour to accept much
of Thatcher’s agenda.
Ronald Reagan’s approval near the first term halfway mark was 35 per
cent with a disapproval of 56 per cent. Reagan remained in the polling
doldrums for 18 months but made history in the 1984 US election by
winning 49 out of 50 states ....

I’d differ in Ruddick only in this (or maybe he’d even agree) - to recall the great maxim from The Leopard,
that for things to stay as they are, everything must change. In other
words, the Government must stick to its firm purpose, but change
everything about the way it delivers and sells. Same purpose, better
means.
UPDATE
Federal Liberal frontbencher Josh Frydenberg lists the 10 lessons of the Victorian Liberals’ defeat:

One: Develop a clear narrative consistent with Liberal philosophy.
Since its inception 70 years ago, the party has stood for smaller and
more efficient government, the power of the individual and his or her
entrepreneurship, opportunity and choice in health and education, and a
safety net for those who can’t help themselves....
Two: Communication is key.... Studies show that the average person
reaches for their mobile device more than 100 times a day. Advertising
via Facebook and Google is often more likely to connect with the
swinging voter.
Three: Challenge the right of partisan unionists to openly campaign in
uniform against the sitting government. It was outrageous to see
hundreds of unionists stand on the booths and doorknock homes in their
firefighting, paramedic and nursing uniforms. It was a clear breach of a
century-old practice of public sector neutrality…
Four: Never let the public forget the failures of your political
predecessors. The Brumby/Bracks years left Victorians with the myki,
desalination plant and north-south pipeline fiascos. But those white
elephants were such a distant memory that Victorians felt comfortable
electing Labor again after such a short period of time.
Five: Disunity is death. Geoff Shaw got headlines for the wrong reasons
and a great opportunity to govern with a majority in both Houses was
missed…
Six: Avoid the fringe and play to the middle… Parties should always be
conscious of the ground upon which elections will be decided…
Seven: Incumbency is providing a diminishing return.
Eight: Don’t leave election announcements too late because more people
vote early. More than 1.1 million voters out of a base of 3.8 million
voted before Saturday…
Nine: Regroup, renew. When the state Liberal Party reconvenes, it will
select its new leader. That provides an opportunity to select a
revitalised team with some new names..
Ten: There is always a silver lining. The rise of the Greens, and the
strength of their challenge in the seat of Melbourne, will cause
heartache for Labor. That is an opportunity for the Coalition, because
there will be occasion where Labor will look to the Coalition for
support against the Greens, knowing that the enemy of my enemy is my
friend.

Actually, that last point presents the Liberals with a
dilemma. As Bill Shorten is proving, you can actually wreck everything
you can and the Government still gets the blame. Why help the Government
do the right thing when chaos is so rewarded?

While Liberal Democratic Party senator David
Leyonhjelm rebuked ministers for not consulting him enough, Palmer
United Party senator Glenn Lazarus complained of being contacted too
often to discuss the government’s university reforms.

How can Ministers negotiate with crossbenchers who refuse to even talk?

The Coalition’s economics committee refused to approve a draft bill to
set up the controversial fund in a blunt signal to ministers that it
would not “rubber-stamp” fresh ideas after seeing the government
struggle to argue for its existing reforms.

It is better to thrash out problems with policies before they are released, not after.
Related:

West Australian MP Ken Wyatt stood at one point and rebuked the
“arrogance” of ministerial staff members, which some took as a coded
reference to the centralisation of power in the ministerial wing. “The
criticism that they’ve put barriers up around the Prime Minister is
absolutely true,” an MP said. “They’ve put walls around him for their
own benefit and that’s a big mistake.”
Another said the Prime Minister’s office should be consulting MPs about
how to improve policies and political tactics. “There is a degree of
paranoia there that is totally unwarranted and unnecessary because
there’s no threat to Tony.”

A DISENDORSED Family First candidate’s attempts to sue columnist Andrew Bolt over an email sent to two people has backfired with a judge ordering him to pay $500,000 in legal costs…
“The defamatory imputations were trivial and obviously made under
qualified privilege. If the claim was the first salvo in Mr Barrow’s
threatened ‘innovative stormwave of defamation claims’ against Mr Bolt,
then it has failed conspicuously,” Justice Forrest wrote in his
judgment.

Men and women who served on Operation Resolute - the Navy’s contribution
to Operation Sovereign Borders - have spoken publicly for the first
time about what they have witnessed while boarding and intercepting
asylum seeker vessels off Australia’s northern coast.
In a series of interviews with the ABC, they described the horrendous
task of retrieving the bodies of dead asylum seekers and of coping with
sick and distressed children in squalid conditions.

They also alleged decisions made in Canberra directly led to the deaths of asylum seekers.

Deaths? Under this Government?

All of the personnel the ABC spoke to served on Operation Resolute during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments.

Ah. Now it becomes clear. This was a problem under Labor, not this government at all.
Strange, though. In this long story that remains the only mention of
Labor, Rudd or Gillard. No mention is made of the Abbott Government
actually stopping these horrors. The casual reader would probably assume
from the report they are continuing.
Let’s now check the ABC 7.30 report of this alleged scandal:

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: ... Australian Defence Force members routinely witness large-scale human degradation and misery.
Tonight, for the first time, some of those Australian men and women
speak publicly about the traumatic experience of dealing with the surge
of asylum seeker boats that reached its peak under the former Labor
government.

This is misleading. All the allegations that follow - other than a
complaint that the Liberals turned back boats - seem to date from
Labor’s period. No sailors now “routinely witness” the ghastly things
the ABC then describes. The boats have been stopped. This problem
didn’t merely reach “its peak” under Labor. It occurred under Labor -
until the Liberals ended the dying and this “large-scale human
degradation and misery”:

They describe how they’ve suffered,
their mistreatment by Defence and the political calculations that can
determine who lives and who dies at sea.

Deaths at sea under Labor? More than 1200. Under the Liberals: none.

TROY NORRIS: ... You’re just trying to do the best you can to get as
many people out of the water as quickly as possible. There’s so many
people on the water…
DAN OAKES: Often Troy Norris faced a different horror: retrieving the dead, including children.
TROY NORRIS: They become quite bloated, very unrecognisable and there’s
only one way to pull them in and that’s to grab ‘em and, you know, try
and chuck ‘em in the boat. And sometimes you’d go to pull these people
in the boat and all you’d end up with is a handful of flesh. They’re
just stripped to the bone…
‘GREG’, FORMER NAVY OFFICER: ... You jump on and you can smell three
days’ worth of human faeces, you can smell vomit. There are children
screaming, there are people crying, there are people - desperation, I
would say. You know, I’d say maybe one in five has someone who’s
deceased. There are other search and rescues where they haven’t been
found in time and everyone’s dead when you get on there. Everyone, and,
you know, they’ve been in the sun for a few days as well.

All of this happened under Labor, which lured over the boats by
weakening our border laws. All of it was stopped by the Abbott
Government.
So how does the ABC deal with a central fact in this story - that the
“cruel” Abbott Government actually stopped the horror unleashed by the
“kind” Labor Government?

DAN OAKES: Under the Labor governments
of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, the number of asylum seekers
dramatically increased. In 2007, 148 people arrived by boat. By 2012,
the figure was 17,000.

Only half the story told.
No mention of this scandalous event occurring under the Gillard Labor Government, either:

‘GREG’: It was a very hot day. It was up
to 45 degrees. We conducted this boarding, steamed the vessel to a buoy
off Christmas Island, which it was secured to while we waited for
someone to make a decision. But it was determined that, firstly, it
wasn’t a good look to have a SIEV arriving on Australia Day [last year].
Secondly, there was no-one in the office to talk to who had the ability
to make the decision without worrying about having to cover their own
backside. So as a result, we sat on that boat with 90 - upwards of 90
men, women and children in 45-degree heat.... And we sat on that boat
for six and a half hours to wait for darkness to fall so we were then
able to unload the people without creating a stir. Without the media
being able to know all the details of it.

No mention that this occurred under Labor, too:

DAN OAKES: ‘Michael’ is a serving Navy member who ... says that people
have died because of delays caused by Canberra. He describes an occasion
when he was told to wait to board a vessel with disastrous
consequences.
‘MICHAEL’, FORMER NAVY OFFICER: Our vessel was delayed 15 hours for a
boarding on one occasion and we got reports in from surveillance
aircraft that that vessel had sunk 13 hours ago and all we found was
probably a line about 70 miles long of bodies....
DAN OAKES: He says decisions made by captains he served under was
sometimes a result of indirect political influence. Sometimes, the
results were fatal.
‘MICHAEL’: I can remember ...where a struggling boat of Rohingyas
halfway to Christmas Island did all they could to comply with the
boarding commander’s instructions, then we left them alone, 150 nautical
miles from anywhere in a poorly-repaired boat.
DAN OAKES: According to ‘Michael’, the captain of the ship said the
instruction to leave the first boat came from Canberra, with tragic
consequences.
‘MICHAEL’: After we rendered the second boat assistance, we went back to
where the previous boat was, 150 miles down. There was no sign of it.

Only near the very end of the show is Labor accused by name:

‘FIONA’, NAVY OFFICER (Actor’s voice): There were times when we had
crews that conducted boardings and saw the state of the vessel, which
was largely overcrowded, and they would have concerns for the welfare of
the people onboard. But they were told they were only to conduct a
boarding to deliver necessary equipment, then they had to disembark and
monitor. On one occasion at least, a vessel overturned and people died.
DAN OAKES: According to ‘Fiona’, the Labor government wanted the boats
to enter Australian waters before being boarded so the crew and
passengers would be subject to Australian migration law.
‘FIONA’ (Actor’s voice): That pressure came from Canberra. It was at a
time of heightened political pressure leading up to the election and
they didn’t want to conduct yet another boarding outside of waters where
they would not get a conviction. So, there was pressure, certainly,
from within the operations room at the headquarters that we were told
the minister himself was standing in Border Protection Command and he
did not want that boat to be boarded.

Which minister? The ABC won’t say:

DAN OAKES: Former Labor government ministers contacted by 7.30 categorically denied any such interference.

And even then, the Abbott Government is not thanked for ending this horror but criticised:

After Labor was ousted by the Coalition in September, 2013,
according to ‘Fiona’, the new turnback policy deterred asylum seekers
from risking their lives, but it simultaneously imperilled those who did
try to reach Australia and were caught.
‘FIONA’ (Actor’s voice): Those boats are generally unseaworthy and
overcrowded. To simply turn them back for the sake of policy and put
them on those not-purpose-built lifeboats is putting women and children
in danger and we could have taken them onboard.

Actually those lifeboats are unsinkable.
To repeat. Deaths at sea under Labor: more than 1200. Deaths at sea under the Abbott Government: zero.
Why did the ABC go out of its way not to say so?

Tim Blair – Tuesday,December 03,2013 (3:59am)

The recent 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination gave us all reason to again consider one of modern history’s great tragedies. But, aside from the inadvisability of travelling in an open car while there are communists in nearby buildings, there are few lessons to be learned from that dreadful day in Dallas.

Another anniversary, however, is loaded with helpful learning moments, especially for the media.

Tim Blair – Tuesday,December 03,2013 (3:08am)

Climate-change policies are expected to cost Britain more than £80 billion by the end of the decade, as critics warn that the global-warming industry is spiralling out of control …

Vast sums are being spent on initiatives ranging from climate-change officers in local councils to the funding of “low carbon” agriculture in Colombia at a cost of £15 million alone. Billions of pounds are also being added to fuel bills to pay for green policies.

On a positive note, at least the latest leftist belief system isn’t actively killing people.

Judith Sloan on the outrageous stacking of the Fair Work Commission - not least by Bill Shorten as Workplace Relations Minister:

Of the 27 appointments made by the Labor government, 18 were either union officials or Labor affiliates. And of these appointments, nearly one-third were at the presidential level. The FWC is now a ridiculously top-heavy organisation, with half of all the members at the presidential level. And just take a look at the salaries. The total annual remuneration of a vice-president is $534,000 and of a deputy president, it is $435,000. Even the more junior commissioners earn $358,000…There is, of course, the possibility the appointees to the FWC will act in a detached and even-handed way. But, alas, it has not been the case. One member of the tribunal is so inclined to hand down lop-sided and prejudiced decisions that many of them are appealed… The Australian Mines and Minerals Association, the resources industry employer group, has outlined a number of areas of significant inconsistency. These include: whether employers have the right to test for drug and alcohol use by workers; whether accessing pornographic material is the basis for justified dismissal; whether assaulting a fellow worker is the basis for justified dismissal; whether annual leave can be cashed out; and whether individual flexibility agreements must actually deliver on their promise.

Let us pray that Employment Minister Eric Abetz can unpick the lock on the box in which the government has put him.

THE Senate has scuttled the Coalition government’s reintroduction of temporary protection visas.Labor and the Greens teamed up on Monday night to pass a disallowance motion in the Senate, 36 votes to 26, to quash the controversial visas.The coalition government reintroduced temporary protection visas via regulation in October as a key plank of its hardline Operation Sovereign Borders policy aimed at discouraging asylum-seeker boat journeys. It must now wait for six months to reintroduce regulation of the same substance.

COMMUNICATIONS Minister Malcolm Turnbull has told ABC managing director Mark Scott it was an error of judgment for the national broadcaster to join The Guardian to publish claims Australia tapped the phones of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife… Mr Turnbull ... defended the legitimacy of the story. However, he said it was The Guardian’s story, not the ABC’s.“They were going to publish it and they just basically wanted a partner to help them amplify their publication,” Mr Turnbull said…Mr Turnbull suggested The Guardian, which launched its Australian web edition earlier this year, would have proposed the partnership with commercial considerations in mind… Mr Turnbull first raised his concerns with Mr Scott in a phone call he initiated last Monday.

About a year ago you shared my band’s video clip on your blog. The band is called Faith & Gasoline and the song, ”Reality Hurts”, dealt with freedom of speech and your recent trial. Thanks to your blog, we received over 100,000 views in under a fortnight and connected with listeners/readers from across Australia, as well as a few readers from Europe and the USA. We also met some interesting characters as we toured Vic, SA and NSW, who had recognised us from your blog! We have now released our second record, “Better Left Unsaid”, as well as a video clip for the title track. The video can be viewed here. And the CD can be purchased in our online store.

The criteria for Blumenstein’s award for a graphic short story in the Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards:

General criteria (across all categories)

Literary merit and overall quality of authorship Originality of concept Stylistic excellence Readability Clarity of purpose Editorial excellence Intent of work met by author Professional presentation

Graphic short storyAll of the general criteria apply but also

Artistic merit

The prize was for a story in Blumenstein’s cartoon book:

It contains personal stories of people who shit me off — many of them politicians. One of the stories is a thing about Andrew Bolt which won a Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing prize the other day.

The prize-winning story was presented as the work of Blumenstein’s much younger brother:

Presenting this as the work of a not-so-bright year 10 student excused Blumenstein the crudity of language and thought of a playground:

All right, so the drawings aren’t great, the writing adolescent - but the politics are right on. And so a former Victorian Liberal leader rewards the sentiments of this “emerging writer” with $1000 taken from ratepayers.
The Left may have conquered the institutions, but it took the acquiescence of conservatives too eager to seem broadminded.

The tenor of intensity with which many journalists dislike the Prime Minister and his colleagues is evident in the note which accompanies the current edition of The Monthly magazine. Editor John van Tiggelen quotes “one of the magazine’s most popular contributors” as declaring: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a cabinet of creeps; I can’t bear to take them seriously yet."… So much is the dislike of Abbott that it appears some commentators want his policies to fail even if this is damaging to Australia’s national interest. This is evident in the reporting of the documents stolen by Edward Snowden… It’s possible the overwhelmingly negative coverage may affect the Coalition at the next election. Or that the media’s apparent obsessions have little traction in the electorate. Despite promising starts, Howard only narrowly won his first election as prime minister in 1998 and Rudd did not even lead Labor to the 2010 campaign. Even so, the Coalition may need to consider whether its apparent tactic of low-profile engagement deserves reassessment.

A tip: George Brandis could play a significant role in the culture war this government must fight. Malcolm Turnbull has all the firepower, too, but whose side would he actually join?
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)

How many billions of dollars have been squandered on pretending to do something about the weather? On placating the great Climate God?Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

Global climate alarmism has been costly to society, and it has the potential to be vastly more costly. It also has been damaging to science, as scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions… There are past examples. In the U.S. in the early 20th century, the eugenics movement had coopted the science of human genetics and was driving a political agenda. The movement achieved the Immigration Restriction Act of 1923, as well as forced sterilization laws in several states. The movement became discredited by Nazi atrocities, but the American consequences survived well into the 1960s.In the Soviet Union, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976) promoted the Lamarckian view of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It fit with Stalin’s megalomaniacal insistence on the ability of society to remold nature….Global warming differs from the previous two affairs. Global warming has become a religion. A surprisingly large number of people seem to have concluded that all that gives meaning to their lives is the belief that they are saving the planet by paying attention to their carbon footprint… In contrast to Lysenkoism, Global Warming has a global constituency, and has successfully coopted almost all of institutional science. However, the cracks in the scientific claims for catastrophic warming are, I think, becoming much harder for the supporters to defend.

For example:

In fact:

“‘Real Risk of a Maunder Minimum ‘Little Ice Age’ announced the BBC this week, in reporting startling findings by Professor Mike Lockwood of Reading University. ‘Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years [raising the risk of a new Little Ice Age]…, explained Paul Hudson, the BBC’s climate correspondent. If Earth is spared a new Little Ice Age, a severe cooling as ‘occurred in the early 1800s, which also had its fair share of cold winters and cold summers is, according to him, ‘more likely than not to happen.”

How much more waste before the cost becomes so crippling that it forces politicians to admit voters have been conned - and fleeced?

So the ABC is informing its audience as a matter of fact, not opinion, that Snowden, now granted asylum in Russia, has exposed corruption, crime or some malpractice in his country’s national security organisations. In the ABC’s language, Snowden is a hero.
But what crime? What corruption? What malpractice? And look at the damage done to the national security of his own country and that of its allies.
The ABC’s description of Snowden is loaded, inaccurate and informed by hostility to the security interests of the West and its citizens. Snowden is about as much a whistleblower as Kim Philby or Wilfred Burchett.
The ABC is out of control.

Senator Bill Heffernan ... said he made a “courtesy” phone call to express his views direct to Mr Howes late Sunday evening, which was met with blunt objection. “He (Mr Howes) hung up actually because he was a bit upset that I’d called him on a Sunday night which was extraordinary,” he said.“But I thought it was an extraordinary circumstance that he would demean the great institution of Australian family farmers with the comment that ma and pa farmers should get out.“He obviously doesn’t understand farming and hasn’t had a real job ever in his life as a trade union person and doesn’t understand the issues or details around the ADM issue."…He said farmers had made great advances over many decades in the uptake of on-farm technology and science to improve their operations.“The bulk of family farmers are viable farmers and besides corporate farming in this country has had a history of going broke,” he said. “Farmers don’t pay themselves overtime like the ma and pa trade unions do.”

I’m not sure why Tony Abbott wasn’t given an auto-cue or better lighting, but the message is very effective.
And the point isn’t just that Labor is ignoring the clear wish of most Australians to scrap the carbon tax and save Australians an average of $550 a year. There is also this, as Paul Murray pointed out on Sky last night: Abbott in the space of a week realised he was making a mistake on school funding and changed course. Labor made a terrible mistake on the carbon tax and in three years still hasn’t been able to change.

One of the most senior figures of the Howard government and a leading ­figure of the Liberal Party’s conservative wing, Peter Reith, has accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of orchestrating the veto of a $3.4 billion US bid for GrainCorp, which he described as the latest of several botched decisions. Mr Reith called on the new government to show more leadership and resist the push for government subsidies and assistance for business, and raised concerns that the GrainCorp decision, which was supposed to have been made by Treasurer Joe Hockey, makes a bailout of Qantas Airways more likely.“Hockey says it should be the subject of a national debate. Australia does not need a debate; we need a government that makes it clear it will not be wasting any more taxpayer money with sub­sidies for business and that its priority, as promised, is to return the budget to surplus ASAP,” he said.“I never thought that the Abbott government would be the first Australian government to knock back an application to Foreign Investment Review Board from the business community of our close ally the United States."… Former treasurer Peter Costello criticised the decision on Sunday. On Monday, former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett said it had condemned Australia to be a “10th-order country” and “we are still back in the 18th century”.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has sought to dampen expectations that the government will offer financial help to Qantas to preserve its investment-grade credit rating, saying the airline has yet to tell politicians exactly what it wants… ‘’Maybe it wants to see the restrictions on ownership lifted,’’ he said on Brisbane radio. ‘’I’m not sure they really want to see a new government shareholding. And the trouble with providing a government loan guarantee is where does it stop?’’

These girls have not yet experienced workplace situations, are not yet at Uni, live in a decade when women held every one of our highest public offices and are represented in the top level of success in private business of every kind - so where did they get this notion from?

- A keeping of the education funding promise (or close enough).
- A far stronger performance - in fact, a good one - from Christopher Pyne on 7.30 last night.
- A good, aggressive performance from Tony Abbott in Question Time yesterday, without crossing that line into stridency that prime ministers must avoid.
- A press conference from Abbott today from a prime minister who at first held few.
- Some red meat in the press conference for Liberal voters, not least on the ABC.

Heartening.
Now, if Speaker Bronwyn Bishop could seem less scared of the Oppositionn and demand less heckling and shouting, even better. It is a poor show when the Prime Minister and others need to remind her of standing orders or need to pause to make the point that the uproar is simply unacceptable. The Member for Parramatta in particular needs a few outings in the sin bin, and Tanya Plibersek’s shouting is surely too much.
Bishop, a classic conservative, thinks setting a good example in civility will impress the uncivil. Actually, a swish of the cane impresses the uncouth even more.
UPDATE
Better. A noisy Labor MP is thrown out.
Worse: Now Julie Bishop has to ask a “rude member” let her finish an answer. Where was Bronwyn Bishop?
UPDATE
Pyne then points out to the Speaker how rude a Labor MP just was to her. (Labor is treating Bishop with a labored patronisation.) She takes no action.

THE Senate has scuttled the Coalition government’s reintroduction of temporary protection visas.Labor and the Greens teamed up on Monday night to pass a disallowance motion in the Senate, 36 votes to 26, to quash the controversial visas.The coalition government reintroduced temporary protection visas via regulation in October as a key plank of its hardline Operation Sovereign Borders policy aimed at discouraging asylum-seeker boat journeys. It must now wait for six months to reintroduce regulation of the same substance.

So stupid.
UPDATE
So the Abbott Government brought back temporary protection visas. Labor last night sided with the Greens in the Senate to scrap them. This is how an ABC reporter then grills the Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison:

Indonesia’s elite are reacting with disproportionate hostility to Australia over the spying controversy, seemingly forgetful of so much help we have offered.
Now Melbourne University academic Professor Thomas Reuter eggs them on, with this virulently anti-Australian poison published in the Jakarta Post:

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Indonesia’s founding president Sukarno declared independence… Dutch prisoners of war, released by Indonesia, were armed and sent back on rampages against Indonesian civilians and police. Australian troops participated in the occupation of the outer islands, including Bali, and were involved in massacres.

Australian troops massacred Indonesians in Bali? This is news to me. The evidence for this incendiary claim?
Australian troops were in Indonesia as a consequence of liberating Indonesia from the Japanese. Australia was actually a strong supporter of Indonesian independence from Dutch rule.

The British have since apologized for this cruel attempt to stifle the young nation’s struggle for freedom and sovereignty. Australia has not.

How can we apologise for something for which no credible evidence seems to exist? Who, other than Reuter, has ever demanded we do apologise?
And if we are to get outraged by massacres in Bali, we should first be cross about mass killings of Indonesians by Indonesians in 1965, and of Australians by Indonesians in 2002. Have apologies been issued for either?

An undeclared war (the “Confrontation") began, and Australian troops participated. Covert operations into Indonesian Kalimantan began in 1964 under the code name Operation Claret. Attempts to assassinate Sukarno failed.

Australians tried to assassinate Sukarno? Where’s the evidence? The most famous attempts to kill him came from an Indonesian air force officer and Islamist radicals. You could even blame Suharto for Sukarno’s death. But Australia?
As for intervening in the Konfrontasi, it was only to protect Malaysia from Indonesian aggression, thanks to Sukarno. Why is that not mentioned?

In 1965, Indonesia witnessed one of the greatest genocides of the 20th century, as army general Soeharto led a military coup against the left-leaning but essentially nationalist and non-aligned Sukarno government. Up to one million innocent Indonesian civilians were butchered over the following year at a rate of 1,500 people per day, to the applause of western powers including Australia.

Applause? Where in Australia was there “applause”? Australian politicians should perhaps have protested more, and they certainly favored the pro-West Suharto to the far-Left Sukarno. But cheering on the massacres?

The deep involvement of British and American intelligence in staging this bloody military coup, similar to the Pinochet takeover of Chile, is beyond reasonable doubt.

In every bloody coup, blame the CIA. The true hallmark of the far-Left. The responsibility for the massacres remain with Indonesians themselves, with Suharto leading a coup against the erratic and dictatorial Sukarno, so economically incompetent that his country was plagued by famines and his people were advised to eat rats..

The lack of an apology for such consistent un-neighborly behavior may seem astonishing in the context of the “Asian Century” and needs to be understood as a direct consequence of the ongoing nature of these operations.

“On going” involvements in assassination plots, coups and massacres? Is this academic serious? We are “un-neighbourly”? Australia? Which backed Indonesian independence, gives $500 million a year in aid, bailed out Indonesia in the Asian financial crisis and donated $1 billion after the terrible tsunami? Why was none of the good we do mentioned in a piece which reads like a hate-stirring slander sheet?

Media reports, citing US and Australian government soms, quickly pointed the finger of blame at the international terrorist network Al-Qaeda and ‘its local operatives. Little attention was given to the national let alone local socio-political context in which the attack had taken place. It was not sufficiently noted that attacks of a similar kind, if not scope, have occurred with increasing frequency since the collapse of Suharto’s military dictatorship in 1998. As a consequence, the tragedy of October 12 was co-opted prematurely and uncritically into the global political agenda and rhetoric of the United States government’s “War on Terror."… The problem in allocating blame for the Bali blast is that radical Islamic groups like Jemaah Islamiyah are not the only groups in Indonesia today who may be willing and capable of committing or supporting acts of terrorism, such as the recent attacks in Bali… Different groups even within the government’s own security forces have been fighting turf wars, with clashes between police and army forces reported from Java, Sumatra and Flores in recent months. A string of violent incidents bears testimony to increasing lawlessness and an expanding culture of political and economic violence, cutting across all sectors of society. This diffusion makes it difficult to pinpoint a single person or group as the likely perpetrators in any particular case.

(Thanks to reader Mick.)

===

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.” Hebrews 1:1-2NIV

The Lord's admiration of his Church is very wonderful, and his description of her beauty is very glowing. She is not merely fair, but "all fair." He views her in himself, washed in his sin-atoning blood and clothed in his meritorious righteousness, and he considers her to be full of comeliness and beauty. No wonder that such is the case, since it is but his own perfect excellency that he admires; for the holiness, glory, and perfection of his Church are his own glorious garments on the back of his own well-beloved spouse. She is not simply pure, or well-proportioned; she is positively lovely and fair! She has actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but more, she has through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by which an actual beauty is conferred upon her. Believers have a positive righteousness given to them when they become "accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6). Nor is the Church barely lovely, she is superlatively so. Her Lord styles her "Thou fairest among women." She has a real worth and excellence which cannot be rivalled by all the nobility and royalty of the world. If Jesus could exchange his elect bride for all the queens and empresses of earth, or even for the angels in heaven, he would not, for he puts her first and foremost--"fairest among women." Like the moon she far outshines the stars. Nor is this an opinion which he is ashamed of, for he invites all men to hear it. He sets a "behold" before it, a special note of exclamation, inviting and arresting attention. "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair" (Song of Sol. 4:1). His opinion he publishes abroad even now, and one day from the throne of his glory he will avow the truth of it before the assembled universe. "Come, ye blessed of my Father" (Matt. 25:34), will be his solemn affirmation of the loveliness of his elect.

Evening

Nothing can satisfy the entire man but the Lord's love and the Lord's own self. Saints have tried to anchor in other roadsteads, but they have been driven out of such fatal refuges. Solomon, the wisest of men, was permitted to make experiments for us all, and to do for us what we must not dare to do for ourselves. Here is his testimony in his own words: "So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What! the whole of it vanity? O favoured monarch, is there nothing in all thy wealth? Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to the sea? Nothing in Palmyra's glorious palaces? Nothing in the house of the forest of Lebanon? In all thy music and dancing, and wine and luxury, is there nothing? "Nothing," he says, "but weariness of spirit." This was his verdict when he had trodden the whole round of pleasure. To embrace our Lord Jesus, to dwell in his love, and be fully assured of union with him--this is all in all. Dear reader, you need not try other forms of life in order to see whether they are better than the Christian's: if you roam the world around, you will see no sights like a sight of the Saviour's face; if you could have all the comforts of life, if you lost your Saviour, you would be wretched; but if you win Christ, then should you rot in a dungeon, you would find it a paradise; should you live in obscurity, or die with famine, you will yet be satisfied with favour and full of the goodness of the Lord.

Today's Old Testament reading: Ezekiel 42-44

The Rooms for the Priests

1 Then the man led me northward into the outer court and brought me to the rooms opposite the temple courtyard and opposite the outer wall on the north side. 2 The building whose door faced north was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide. 3 Both in the section twenty cubits from the inner court and in the section opposite the pavement of the outer court, gallery faced gallery at the three levels. 4 In front of the rooms was an inner passageway ten cubits wide and a hundred cubits long. Their doors were on the north. 5 Now the upper rooms were narrower, for the galleries took more space from them than from the rooms on the lower and middle floors of the building. 6 The rooms on the top floor had no pillars, as the courts had; so they were smaller in floor space than those on the lower and middle floors. 7 There was an outer wall parallel to the rooms and the outer court; it extended in front of the rooms for fifty cubits. 8 While the row of rooms on the side next to the outer court was fifty cubits long, the row on the side nearest the sanctuary was a hundred cubits long. 9The lower rooms had an entrance on the east side as one enters them from the outer court....

Today's New Testament reading: 1 John 1

The Incarnation of the Word of Life

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.

Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness

5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

===

Amasa [Ăm'asă]—burden-bearer.

The son of David’s half-sister Abigail whom Absalom made captain of his rebel army (2 Sam. 17:25; 19:13; 20). Amasa was completely defeated by his cousin Joab in the forest of Ephraim (2 Sam. 18:6-8). David not only forgave Amasa but gave him Joab’s place (2 Sam. 19:13). Joab treacherously slew him (2 Sam. 20:9-12).

The name of an Ephraimite who with others resisted the bringing into Samaria the Jews Ahaz had made prisoners ( 2 Chron. 28:12).

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About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..